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Enchanted Assemblages: Gameplay Update

After doing some tinkering with the game play modes I decided to alter slightly the concept of game play modes themselves. As dedicated readers will know, originally, I was deciding on different play styles which would seamlessly shift among one another as the player encroached upon different areas in their journey. Well, that is more or less gone.

You see, I realized that that was simply not possible. Or, if it was possible then it would have been very time consuming to 'program' and smooth out of kinks. Now I have simply opted for a more delineated system of game play modes which encourages different styles of reading for different in-game objectives.

Previously, it was my intent to incorporate most, if not all, somehow, of the literary theoretical devices when devising game play modes. I was going to define one set of domineering game play modes, styles, or stylistics as philosopher Gilles Deleuze would say, which would assert specific game play norms as the player interacted with the world while another set of styles would act as a kind of sub-script to that domineering one, and augment in subtle ways how the player interacted.

As I said, it would have simply taken too much time to program and it would have been prone to a much higher degree of error. Additionally, and I had to be realistic about this, that sort of density would have been confusing to students. Now I am simply opting to retain the domineering modes of play. And, alas, I have only decided to include three different styles.

All though it is lamentable that this course is a necessity, it is nonetheless a necessity. Let us be honest, it would have been too densely packed for its own good. So much would have been 'going on' that the reader would not have known where to begin when attempting to unpack a scenario, dungeon, or boss encounter. They would have had a thousand questions in their mind and none of which would have provided any clear route to what would be asked of them to solve.

So with sticking to just three game play modes I hope to give the players a deeper experience. Something where I am able to get a bit more intimate instead of dense for the sake of density.

The three game play modes are: (1) Combat; close reading, (2) Adventure; Marxist criticism, and (3) Mystery; Reader-Response Criticism.

Since each of these modes follow one another very closely in their hermenuetic practice, I figured that it would be the easiest to play around with these ideas in relation to enemy encounters, dungeon navigation, and player-text interaction. Each truly demands the inclusion of at least one another, if not all three, so while there will be moments in the game which prizes one game play mode over another, no such style will ever be left out in the dark during game play.

Okay, that is all I have foe now. Next time I will elaborate upon the role of comments in this game!

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Lately, I was browsing around online and found another handy resource for aspiring medievalists.

Enter, Western Michigan University's Medieval Institute!

The site has links to an extensive book shop, scholarly journals, as well as a free download. See below for links.

General listing: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medievalpress/
Index of titles available for purchase: http://www.wmich.edu/medievalpublications/all-titles
The 'Medieval Globe' book(s): http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/ (Click on title(s) for free download)

Okay, that is all for now. Sometime soon I think that I would like to organize all of my resource links so that I, as well as you, have a concrete listing of reliable resources. Until then, we shall have to make due.